Putin Directing the War via Zoom, Supposedly ‘Everything According to Plan’ but Why Are 16,000 Arab Volunteers Needed?

The war has failed to breach Putin’s COVID bubble which remains in place. He is directing the war via Zoom conferences:

In the latest televised conference Shoigu informed Putin that up to 16,000 people in the Middle East were prepared to pick up arms for Russia in Ukraine. Putin expressed approval for the idea they be given the opportunity to do so.

This strikes me as an unusual thing to say.

How long would it take to integrate Arabic fighters into Russian forces and to what extent could that be done? A war of what length is expected here that this makes sense?

Moscow says that conscripts and reservists are not needed for the war effort, but steps to assimilate up to 16,000 Arabic fighters to the force are welcome. That’s a little bit strange.

And why does it make sense to send policemen (Rosgvardia) but not reservists and conscripts? At least the latter two are soldiers.

Is this Putin reassuring Russian mothers to not worry, their son won’t be sent to Ukraine because there are plenty of Middle Easterners eager to do the fighting and dying for them?

Personally I would be very surprised to learn there are 1600, let alone 16000, Arabic fighters wanting to volunteer to risk life and limb in places with names like Zaporozhye or Dnipropetrovsk.

Launching a halfway war has already proven a mistake. Reassuring the nation that the war can continue to victory as a halfway effort without greater Russian mobilization and sacrifices could prove to be another.

A different leader might have opted to tell the nation this was a critical moment for the war and that an all-national push was needed to end this quickly. Putin has chosen the opposite.

In this context Shoigu also informed Putin that everything was “going according to plan”. Okay great. Super. But since that is so then why take on the hassle of integrating Arabs into your fighting force? Or was the plan all along to have a long war where that makes sense?

After Putin and Shoigu, the leader of the Donetsk Republic likewise told Russian TV audiences that “thousands and thousands” of people from the Middle East were ready to liberate Donbass:

“These are thousands and thousands of volunteers who are ready to come.I do not rule out that in the very near future they will be with us in the neighboring trenches, shoulder to shoulder with our units of liberation of Donetsk People’s Republic and of the Lugansk People’s Republic,” he stressed.

Actually, the Syrian army is constituted along Soviet/Russian lines and has many Russian staff officers serving as advisers. Such units, if dispatched whole, can work with the Russians easily, as they have been doing for years. However, you will note that Syria itself is still at war, with much of its territory occupied by Turkish-protected Bin Ladenites, US-augmented Kurdish separatists, Americans (around al-Tanf), and the Turks (the north).

Syrian control in red

If Syrian army units started to appear in Donbass that to me wouldn’t say that everything has gone according to plan.

Comments (29)
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  • SteveK9

    I doubt they will be going. How would the coordinate that?

    Obviously there is a big political aspect to this ‘operation’. If Russia wanted to ‘win’ in a day or two, they could simply have bombed everything.

    Marko: You tell me what you think of this article (in Russian).

    https://alex-o-mire.blogspot.com/2022/03/blog-post_9.html

    • Dale

      You may be making too much sense for Marco.

      • Jerôme

        Croatian ustaśa fascist= Marjanović!!!

        • Mr Reynard

          Are you positive that his name is Marjanović & not Hymie from Haifa ??

    • ken

      This part of it was what I liked the best….

      “With rapture, cutting the Russian and Ukrainian military with each other is too luxurious a gift for Washington and the Euro-Reich. Bandera’s “partisan detachments” will break your nerves, but the idea of the command is not bad. They will become legitimate prey for counter-terror detachments, military police and Ramzan Kadyrov’s men from the National Guard. Who do not take terrorist prisoners, they wet them… where they will find them. Denazification in the literal sense of the word.

      An even sadder fate awaits the numerous mercenaries of the EuroReich, from which they form not military units (once), but sabotage and tactical groups. Our General Staff has already stated that it does not consider them combatants with all the ensuing consequences, no conventions on prisoners of war work here. I am sure that a special, cruel and purposeful hunt will be conducted for these “soldiers of fortune”. Poor devils…”

      Machine translation but I get the gist….

      • Jerôme

        The mercenaries from zionazi USrael, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand must be skinned down while alive, and sold on body parts!!!

        • Hostage (Raptar) Driver

          It is best that they are sold as dog food.

    • Jerôme

      Marjanović is Croatian( Hrvatski) ustaśa!!!

  • anon

    Why… would someone who supposedly considers Pan-Slavic cohesion as a primary objective of his ahem, ‘incursion’… be considering arab mercenaries as a sensible course of action?….

    Viewed through such a lens surely this is nonsense… if however one wishes to create the mother of all clusterf*cks on Europe’s periphery..
    because don’t forget Europe’s full of head-choppers on welfare…

    It makes absolutely perfect sense…

  • anon

    Why would you conduct your ‘War’ via Zoom… a piece of spyware connected to the CIA in Langley… and those imbeciles in Blighty sat in the donut…

    Could Zoom be the ‘Enigma’ machine of the 21st century, because that’s how the financial carrion sat atop ‘intelligence’ (both sides) ran the theatre of war in WW2….

  • tobi999

    Those arabas are specialized like the chechens to clean urban areas from terrorists, they will continue with cleaning process, of NATO-Nazis which won’t survive this war…

  • EstibenDelMar

    it remembers me the german SS had Arab batallions and regiments, all of them with their own imams. Hitler presented them w a miniature koran to each of them.

  • sardonicus

    psyop, of course

  • Kieran

    there is gratitude and eagerness to repay a debt that drives 16,000 Syrian fighters to joint battle with Putin’s army against the Ukro-Nazis. Syria was saved from becoming a failed state like Libya where slave trade abounds today only because of the intervention of Vladimir Putin and every middle easterner knows it

  • Voz 0db

    “but Why Are 16,000 Arab Volunteers Needed?”
    JUST a little FUN payback time!

  • peterinanz

    Good article.

    As for the title, you do know why, of course.

    If Putin were half a person he’s supposed to be he’d do exactly as you said:
    “opted to tell the nation this was a critical moment for the war and that an all-national push was needed to end this quickly.”

    This is starting to become a bloody quagmire.
    Or, as anon’s comment here says:
    “….the mother of all clusterf*cks on Europe’s periphery..”

  • Peter

    If everything goes according to the plan, why are 16,000 Arab volunteers needed?
    Marko, this question says about yourselves more then you want. And what it says – is not good. Desist!

  • XSFRGR

    The 16,000 Arab volunteers aren’t particularly needed, but Putin is honoring them by giving them an opportunity to repay Russia. The Arabs have a debt of honor to Russia, and that’s a very big thing for Arabs as it should be for all of us. This is an opportunity to discharge their debt by an act of great courage, and sacrifice. Putin is very wise to do this.

    • GMC

      All it took was the news that there are Jewish commando’s working for Ukraine. And the Jew Prez is another prize. Allah Akbar as the old Muslim saying goes.

      • XSFRGR

        The world is in the time of its greatest peril. Evil is ascendant, and if not for the power of God we are doomed. Allah Akbar, indeed !!

    • Mr Reynard

      & they can clean Ukraine maybe ??

  • GMC

    I thought Arabs had enough of Jews and Americans in the Middle East – so why wouldn’t they want to come and kill the Jews and their Nazis in Ukraine. At least in Ukraine , they will have air support from Russia and they will get paid a whole lot more than at home. There are many Muslim leaders on Russia’s side.

  • mirko

    In my opinion it might make sense if Syrian battalions with fresh experience of urban combat were moved to Ukraine, while positions in Syria are maintained by the Russians, in a place where they have a freer hand with bombs

  • William White

    Willing fighters are always superior. For many of these men this would be a thank you to Russia for saving Syria from the USA and the Jews. A point of honor.

    • XSFRGR

      A point of honor ! EXACTLY !!

  • Jerôme

    Ustaša Marjanović, 16, 000 volunteers from Syria on Russian side is equal to thar Ukrofascist& nazi banderas , taking 16,000 to 20,000 paid mercenaries from the zionazi West!!! Tooth for tooth, eye for eye!!!

  • Jerôme

    After Kurvaine is finished, and from Khuiev will be again Kiev, Russia will completely liberate the entire Syrian lands!!!

  • Amy

    I get paid over 190$ per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought I’d be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what I’ve been doing..
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  • emmanuelozon

    Why are 16000 Arabs wanted?

    Cannon fodder.